


sartorial success

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-Episode: s02e05 A Hen in the Wolf House
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-19 20:51:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15518331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: Trip’s just checking in on Simmons. He’ll say a quickhello, glad you’re back safe from the tentacled freakshow,make sure she didn’t crack a rib jumping onto the quinjet last night, and that’ll be it. In and out. Easy.





	sartorial success

**Author's Note:**

> Over on tumblr an anon prompted "uniform" for a five to ten minute fic prompt. (This took longer than that.)

Skye gives Trip a knowing wink when they cross paths in the hall. A wink _and_ a smile. Like she thinks he’s up to something. Which he isn’t. He’s just checking in on Simmons. He’ll say a quick _hello, glad you’re back safe from the tentacled freakshow_ , make sure she didn’t crack a rib jumping onto the quinjet last night, and that’ll be it. In and out. Easy. Nothing to wink about here.

Turns out though that some things don’t change, not even after six months undercover in Hydra. Things like Simmons taking him totally off guard without even trying. Because he’s barely stepped into her open doorway when he hears her mutter, “Well. Damn,” under her breath.

“Something wrong?” he asks, wondering if maybe it is her ribs. He knew he should’ve checked her out last night-

(Thank God for years of specialist training because that’s all that keeps his friendly expression in place while inside he’s wringing his own neck.)

 _Medically_. He should have checked her out _medically_ last night. For injuries. But by the time he pulled himself away from the Hunter-and-Bobbi show she was talking to Fitz and he didn’t want to intrude.

Of course she might be fine. She certainly spins around fast enough to face him.

“Agent Triplett! No, no. Nothing’s wrong.”

“Simmons,” he says sternly, moving inside. She backs up, matching him step for step until her bed stops her.

“A- a- agent?”

He drops the act and smiles. “I thought we got past that. You can call me Trip.”

“Right.” Her eyes drop to the right, classic sign of deception. How she ever survived six months in Hydra, he’ll never know.

He’s glad she did though. His heart’s still aching from the vice it’s been locked in ever since Coulson told them where she really was and he breathes a little deeper just because he can. Still stings a little, but this is the good kind of pain, the one that reminds him she’s alive.

Behind Simmons, one of her hands moves. She’s got a piece of paper there, white on one side, glossy photo on the other. He can’t make out what it’s of though.

“That what’s causing you the trouble?”

The paper disappears behind her back again. “No! No, it’s just something from Skye. A welcome home gift.”

“Oh? She didn’t say anything to me. I would’ve gone halvsies.”

The guilty red in her cheeks deepens and her mouth drops open in a way that’s just no fair at all. He can’t help imagining the curve of her jaw against his knuckles, the softness of his lip under his thumb, and then the taste…

Nope. No, no, nope. He’s got a mission here. One he’s really gotta get back to. Hell, he wasn’t even supposed to _come inside_ , this was visual contact only. And now his fingers are itching and he’s thinking dirty thoughts that are definitely not on-mission.

To distract his hands—and hopefully Simmons since all the training in the world can’t be enough to keep what he’s thinking off his face—he snatches the paper from her.

“No!”

She’s so _cute_ grabbing for it, hopping on her toes like that, can he really be blamed for holding it above his head out of reach? Especially when it gets her leaning against him for leverage? He’s only human, after all.

Suddenly her eyes are meeting his and he realizes just how close they are to each other, way closer than they were before. Hell, he can feel her breath on his mouth. This is Not Good.

“Agent Triplett,” she says with a note of pleading. “Give it back.”

He thinks about asking what she’d give him for it. He knows what he wants, what he’d take in a heartbeat if she offered. But it wouldn’t be offering if he demanded it and he’s never been that kind of guy. Something that was always a helluva lot easier back before she made him _want_ to be that kind of guy. (But, damnedest thing, she also makes him want to  _not_ be that kind of guy more. This is what he was talking about when he said she messes him all up without even trying.)

So instead he lowers his hand slowly to his chest and says, “Trip. To my friends, it’s Trip.”

She smiles a little and damn if that isn’t worth giving in and all, even if it does come with her backing off him. She holds her hand out so he can put the paper into it.

“Trip,” she says. “Thank you.”

“No,” he says, shaking his head real quick. “I shouldn’t have taken it to begin with. I’m sor-”

The apology flies right out of his head because he catches sight of the front side of the photo and it’s him. He remembers this picture. Skye said she wanted evidence of him in an Air Force service dress uniform and he gave her his biggest grin for it. He thought she just wanted it for- Well, truth be told he didn’t know _what_ she wanted it for—blackmail or some weird scrapbook? But he certainly didn’t think she’d be giving Simmons a copy.

She snatches it back—and, he notices, smooths it out the wrinkles he put in it like she wants to keep it.

“Skye was catching me up on things I’d missed around here,” she says.

“Ah. So she gave you photos of everyone’s undercover outfits over the last six months?” He looks pointedly around the room at the total lack of other photos.

“No,” she says guiltily.

“So she gave you mine because … she thought you’d appreciate it the most?”

Since his smile isn’t hiding a damn thing, he’s not really surprised by how firm her _no_ sounds. He just smiles wider.

“She thought you’d like it,” he says with a wicked grin. “Because I look good in a uniform.”

She rolls her eyes. “All men do, that isn’t unique to you.”

So she _does_ think he looks good in the photo. Good to know.

He starts backing towards the door, figuring this is the time to make his exit before he messes this all up. “You enjoy that photo,” he says and, before she can think of something snappish to come back at him with, “and I’m gonna get out of here before I get so smug it ruins the photo for you. I know, I know, you’re thinking it’s impossible, I’m so handsome and so humble; but I’m secretly very vain.”

Just like he’d hoped, that gets a laugh out of her. It’s a good sound, one he hasn’t heard since … Lord, since before the uprising probably. He’s missed it. Missed her more than he probably should have for a girl he knew exactly fifty-two days before she up and left.

He lets his teasing smile fade, lets it turn into something genuine and heartfelt, just for a second, not nearly long enough to be incriminating. “I’m glad you’re back safe, Simmons.”

Then he makes his exit and that right there would be enough. Not mission accomplished—he went way too far off book for that—but something better all the same. Only he’s only made it half a step into the hall when he hears her say, “Jemma. You can call me Jemma.”

And that? That makes this failure of a mission just about perfect.

 


End file.
